It seems that what I am trying to do will not work. The concept of trying to mix RSS with XHTML seems to be flawed, as illustrated by the W3C feed. While it does validate as proper RSS, it fails miserably when it comes to validating as an XHTML document. This brings up an interesting point in trying to create files that are modular and can be used in multiple name spaces. If XHTML is truly a modular language, then the assumption would be that it would be possible to have it validate as a proper web page by referencing the proper XHTML namespace. However, it does not seem to be so. The problem arises out of the need for a DTD to be specified as part of the XHTML core structure. The same problem exists in XHTML 2 which could be a problem moving forward. What is needed is for XHTML to chuck this dependency and rely solely on namespaces for the purpose of establishing conventions. After all, if an XHTML 2 document is reformulation of HTML in XML, why would it need a DOCTYPE ? If it continues doing so, it could jeopardize its modularity and will not…

There has recently been much grumbling about XHTML 2 in general and its deprecation of the IMG tag in favor of the OBJECT one. While XHTML 2 is indeed a departure from the existing standards instead of being an evolution, it is important to realize that some of the things the workgroup is trying to do is fix old issues and help improve the overall development of the web. While I agree with Zeldman’s assertion that IMG should be deprecated in this version instead of being completely tossed out, I believe that the tag should never have been in HTML in the first place. The argument for an OBJECT tag date back to the early days of the web (circa 1993) when things broke down into two camps: one that wanted a quick and dirty way to show images on the web (the IMG crowd) and the other that looked forward and wanted any type of media to be embedded in a page (the OBJECT crowd). We are now paying for the decisions that were made back then and, much like tables are still in use for layout on most sites instead of being replaced by CSS, we will continue…

I’d like to suggest a few optional additions to the specification. Here are some ideas I’d like to throw around for discussion: At the item level : This would allow us to specify a particular date for an item. I think it would be nice for those of us who have several days’ worth of content in their RDF channel. At the channel level: These could be encapsulated in to an section that would include all links to outside of the channel. : Much like points to the page the channel is for could point to a page of information about this channel. this could link to a FAQ or more information about the channel. : Points to a page where wireless devices can go. : Points to a page where broadband devices can go. : Points to a page where narrowband devices (browsers for blind people, text-only browsers, etc..) can go. : Points to a P3P page to check the privacy rules. : Points to either a VXML source file (which can be read by a VXML browser) or a sound file. For example, it could serve up a radio feed related to this story. : Same as above…